Protection society calls to suspend bolt-gun culling programs and allow for research of non-lethal methods

Killing deer in the Capital Region isn’t the solution to managing their population or resolving conflicts, says new report.

In May 2016, Animal Alliance of Canada, a member of the BC Deer Protection Society (BCDPS), commissioned McCrory Wildlife Services to conduct an independent review of urban deer culls in five B.C. municipalities: Oak Bay, Cranbrook, Invermere, Kimberley, and Elkford.

“The report is striking in its findings: lack of long-term effectiveness of culls, lack of reliable data and scientific information,” said Barry MacKay, Director, Animal Alliance and spokesperson, BCDPS. “The culls are about killing deer, not resolving conflicts.”

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Part of the cull controversy is use of the “clover trap/bolt gun killing method” in city limits, public parks and golf courses where firearms and crossbows are restricted. The method works like this:

The animal is lured into a cage-like trap

An attendant collapses the trap on the animal to restrain it

The animal is shot in the head with a bolt gun (a device that thrusts a metal rod with a blast of compressed air, typically used to kill livestock)

According to long-time Kootenay wildlife biologist Wayne McCrory, lead author of the report, “We found that culling either through expensive lethal methods or non-lethal translocations of deer from certain communities had some short-term benefits but deer numbers rebounded fairly quickly because of their naturally good reproductive rates and from other deer simply moving in from the outside.”